High School Game Preview (MB): Grant Park and Steinbach meet under the lights at IGF

This week in the WHSFL the Steinbach Sabres will take on the Grant Park Pirates on Friday at Investors Group Field at 7: 30 pm.

The Steinbach Sabres are 1-4. The Grant Park Pirates are 3-1-1 after losing to the Vincent Massey Trojans, 19-5.

After 5 weeks of action in the Potter Division, Sabres’ Head Coach Jamie Peters has liked his team’s level of compete, and their ability to hang tough in every game.

The Sabres haven’t had any major surprises this season, but Coach Peters is happy with the growth of their grade 9 quarterback Sawyer Thiessen, and grade 10 defender Issac Dokken.“Also the leadership of Eric Adams, Sheycoy Selent, Stefan Froese, Tyler Bueckert has been great to watch,” added Peters.

Heading into this matchup with the Pirates the message will be the same for the Sabres. They need to get better. They’ll need to compete to the best that they can be as an individual and as a team.

“If we do those things we will be competitive and continue to get better each and every week,” said Peters. “We believe strongly that if you do the little things right winning will take care of itself. That is always our focus.”

Even though his team may have lost to the Trojans last week, Doug Kovacs was pleased with the intensity that the Pirates showed throughout the game, but they know that mental mistakes and field position are critical to the game and they need to cut down on those. Kovacs mentioned, “You need to make plays in every game to win and we did not do that.”

At 3-1-1, Kovacs believes there is a lot of room for improvement and they all need to be better. The emphasis this week for will be cutting down on mental mistakes and improving special teams. The coaching staff at Grant Park feels they can do better and they hope the players feel the same way. “Our Goal is to compete for the Potter Championship, to get there we need to do all the little things right,” explained Kovacs.

This season, Liam Orchard, Josh Soisak and Marco Chagas have really stepped up on the offensive line as juniors for the Grant Park Pirates. Kovacs added, “They continue to be strong and steady players who are getting better every week.”

Linebacker Brian Nieva has done a great job for a first year player in the middle. Jacob Sanchez has shown his versatility in several positions. “Jacob could be a future U sports player if he decides to go that route with his speed athleticism size and versatility,” said Kovacs.

In the secondary Alex Minor has cemented a roll as a first year player and continues to improve weekly. Also, Lee Margolis continues to improve at tight end and should be a two-way force in the future.

For Grant Park to improve to 4-1-1 they’ll need to limit Steinbach’s passing game and create turnovers with their secondary play. This game will be won on special teams, and the Pirates’ ability to control the ball against the Sabres’ dynamic 3-3 stack defense. Kovacs replied, “Coach Peters has done a tremendous job at Steinbach and they will be slightly favored in this game as they are getting better every week.”

We at CFC think that the Sabres will come in hungry and upset the Grant Park Pirates for the win.